During World War I many soldiers from the Perth and Kinross area lost their lives, were severely injured and captured by the enemy.

To mark the Armistice on Monday, November 11 1918, the PA printed a special ‘peace edition’, recounting the last four years of the Great War.

The edition also included an interview with Perth soldier Private James McCracken, who was taken as a prisoner of war (POW) in Germany and had just returned to Perth days before the Armistice was signed.

Private McCracken, from The Grange, served in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, and was taken as a POW in France on March 21 1917, where he remained until only a month before the end of the war.

His platoon became surrounded during the “Kaiser battle” and he was shot in the right arm - which was broken - by enemy sharpshooters firing from a nearby sunken road.

The Germans advanced onto his platoon and he was discovered and sent to a German dressing station to see a doctor.

Private McCracken said the line of injured soldiers at the station went on for a mile, with soldiers lying out in the open as they waited for medical treatment.

He was sent into a lorry car which was en route to a French village, where he was the only British soldier among the wounded Germans.

Once in the French village, he was given coffee in a church, which had been converted into a German hospital.

The PA reported: “Leaving the hospital to entrain, they were confronted by an old French priest, who came out and said, “Well, boys, tell us the worst.” One of the lads who was lying on a stretcher replied - “It is all right still, father, and they are paying a very heavy price.” The old man replied - “Thank God for that!”

However, from then on Private McCracken was put on a train to a POW camp in Germany, where he recounted the horrors he endured.

The report read: “When aboard the train, there were 30 of us in the furniture van.

“The floor was covered in wood shavings.

“We were given a small portion of bread, and led to understand that we were going on a journey of only about 12 hours.

“The van, I may say, was full of slightly wounded cases, several of whom had broken arms, broken legs, and severe internal injures, and had only a rough dressing put on.

“There were no splints on the broken limbs, with the result that every jolt of the train and movement of the men, who were simply packed in like herring, caused them terrible pain.

“We started off, and the journey lasted three days and three nights!

“The only food besides a small portion of black bread which they had given us at Denain [in France] was an old Swiss milk tin full of very dirty soup, which was handed in at 4am, and another serving at 6pm.

“It was March, and the weather was bitterly cold, and sleep at nights quite impossible.

“The stench of the wounds and the fact that there was no sanitary assistance for the men who were unable to get up, were awful experiences.

“Some of that trainload of men, to my knowledge, were practically dead when carried out of the train when we arrived in Germany.

“All were agreed that it was the most terrible and trying experience that they had ever undergone during the war.”

Once he arrived at the POW camp, injured soldiers were given paper to cover their wounds and had to wait up to eight days to get more clean paper.

The camp saw prisoners divided into companies of French, Italian, Serbian, Romanian, Russian and British and prisoners were made to work on a nearby farm, in the camp itself, or as grave-diggers.

Up to 30 prisoners were needed every day to dig graves as so many from the camp were dying.

There was some censored entertainment on the camp, including weekend cinema nights and concerts given by the prisoners themselves, described by Private McCracken as “cinema pictures, representative of drama and comedy, according to the German idea”.

They also received parcels from home via the Red Cross, although added it would be months before they got a hold of what had been sent to them.

His article in the ‘peace edition’ of the PA also recounted the cruel punishments handed down at the camp he was in during his stay.

The paper said: “In the camp where Private McCracken was, there was an Englishman suffering from heart trouble.

“He was in a convalescent commando, where light work is given, such as cutting brooms, etc.

“He had not been working to the satisfaction of the German sentry, who knew he was suffering from heart trouble.

“With practically no warning, that he must work harder, he was shot at from what must have been about three yards’ distance and wounded.

“In another case a man came back to camp covered in marks, having been severely beaten with heavy sticks.

“He was bruised practically from head to feet.

“The man lying in the bed next to me, who had been a valet in civil life, was sent to a mine which was in a very bad condition, and was hit on the head with a fall of material.

“He was so changed in appearance when he came back after a fortnight away that I did not know him.”

James McCracken was one of three brothers sent to fight during World War I.

His brother Alexander was in the Black Watch and at the time of the Armistice was wounded and recovering in a hospital in England.

And his other brother William was serving in the Royal Garrison Artillery in France at the time.

The PA had called Private McCracken’s story a “remarkable experience” and said the reporters had found it “of thrilling interest”.

Historic copies of the PA including Private McCracken’s interview in the ‘peace edition’ are housed in the local and family history department at AK Bell Library, Perth.